7 Bible Quotes For Married Couples To Study

Feb 29, 2016

Here are seven Bible quotes that couples can study in the hopes that their marriage will be strengthened.

Matthew 19:4-5 “He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?”

Jesus said “Have you not read” because they should have known Scriptures and that God intended marriage to be for life. He didn’t create it just to create a way out of it and have divorce be as simple as handing someone a bill of divorcement. That was man’s idea and it hasn’t turned out well at all. That may be why Jesus went all the way back to the Garden and quoted Genesis 2:24 where it says “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” One very important thing that’s here is that marriage is defined by God as consisting of one man and one woman, but there’s also the fact that the man is to “leave his father and mother,” perhaps meaning there’s a boundary marker that his parents are not to cross. He is to leave them and cleave to his wife and so also the wife is to leave her family and cling to her husband; for life!

Hebrews 13:4 “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.”

Easy divorces and people focused on how they feel have created an avalanche of divorces since just over a hundred years ago. Blended families have been created and create great tensions and rivalries and jealousies within families. The traditional nuclear family of a dad, mom, and child or children is now in the minority.

Proverbs 18:22 “He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.”

Of course the same could be true of a woman who finds a good husband obtains favor from the Lord and by the word “good,” I believe it means someone who is a believer in God for none can do any good by themselves. Only God appoints good works for us to do (Eph 2:10) and then empowers us by His Spirit to do them.

First Corinthians 7:1-2 “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.”

There is a hidden danger that comes from depriving their spouse from their conjugal rights (1st Cor 7:3), but first of all, it’s contrary to God’s purpose in marriage, “For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does” (1st Cor 7:4). Paul was concerned that couples would deprive one another that he wrote, “Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control” (1st Cor 7:5).

First Corinthians 13:4-7 “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

I have heard this at many weddings and I think it’s perfectly appropriate. What brought these couples together, and that would be love, will hold that couple together in the years to come but only if they love patiently, kindly, not enviously, not in boasting, or being arrogant and insists on everything to be their way or the highway. Love isn’t easily irritated, doesn’t hold onto resentment, doesn’t love sinful things but rather, “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.” That’s a great study for couple that’s engaged or married.

Ephesians 5:11 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”

The two individuals come together and become one flesh and one new family too, and so it is as Jesus said, “they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matt 19:6). If God has joined them together, man is not supposed to separate them, including the ones in the marriage. Divorce is only allowed if there is ongoing, unrepentant adultery but it is always in the hopes that the sinning spouse would repent and that they both would be reconciled to one another. When violence occurs, then it is time to leave for sure and turn in the abuser into the police and let God’s sovereign sword deal with them (Rom 13:1-3).

Ephesians 5:33 “However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”

The relationship between husband and wife is also a mystery that is “profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Eph 5:32). Profound but profoundly difficult as husbands are told “love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph 5:25). How did Christ give Himself up for the church? He washed the dirty, smelly feet of the disciples, even of his betrayer, Judas. Before Jesus was about to go to the cross to return to the Father, and Jesus, “having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1) or He loved them to the greatest extent possible is how some scholars word it. That is the type of love that dies for an enemy (Rom 5:10). Husbands, that’s our calling.

Conclusion

If you understand that God created marriage for life and that no one is supposed to divorce and that the man and woman are to leave and cleave to another, and that the couple should know that love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things” (1st Cor 13:7), then nothing will separate them; only death. One thing that’s missing and is the most important thing in a marriage is “though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken” (Eccl 4:12). We know that two are better than one (Eccl 4:9) since a twofold cord is harder to break than one, but when you add a third cord, the Spirit of God, it’s “not quickly broken.” That third cord will make all the difference.

Article by Pastor Jack Wellman

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